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Re: Something needs to change - looking for suggestions

I think a lot of the more sorted folks are also using frozen brood tests. Prof Ratneiks at Sussex lays out the basis on a slide

It was demonstrated a while back that general hygienic behaviour as demonstrated by the frozen brood test is unrelated to VSH.

This quote is from Jerry Bromenshenk:

I invented the liquid nitrogen freeze method while working on a project for
EPA. I found that neither the pin prick nor Steve Tabor's - cut and
freeze in freezer- produced consistent results. The problem is that physical
damage (pricking, cutting out bits of comb) can induce a repair behavior.
Hygenic behavior is supposedly controlled by two genes, each with a bit
different behavior. Also, removal of paper is probably not a good test -
its just part of a two step process.

As per area of brood - the larger the area you kill, the more certain you
will be to see bees take action - that's again not simply hygienic
behavior, but a response to a damage 'crisis'.

What most have forgotten - our data showed that several small patches over
more than on brood frame provided the most reliable test.

Jeff Harris noted that VSH bees do not uncap freeze killed brood any better than run of the mill bees.

Re: Something needs to change - looking for suggestions

>>Breeding has been 'scientific' for 2 or 3 hundred years.
>A few days ago you said it was 'tens of thousands of years'.
>I advocate traditional husbandry - as practiced for tens of thousands of years, the foundation of agriculture. As used, amost alone, to keep stock fit and productive right up to the post-war era.

These are two different statments. "traditional husbandry" is breeding from the best. "Scientific breeding" is breeding for very specific traits that can be tested for and taking specific measurements of traits. "traditional husbandry" has existed as long as people have been breeding anything.

Somewhere along that line that degenerated into carefully measuring specific traits and maintaining specific lines, which almost alwasy turns out to be a very bad idea that results in cows that can't calf, horses that can't process potassium, dogs that are deaf etc.

Re: Something needs to change - looking for suggestions

Somewhere along that line that degenerated into carefully measuring specific traits and maintaining specific lines, which almost always turns out to be a very bad idea that results in cows that can't calf, horses that can't process potassium, dogs that are deaf etc.

Breeding for extreme yellow bees is an example of breeding for visual appeal regardless of other traits.

The key to all breeding work is to remember that any time you enhance one trait, you are by necessity removing genes from the population. In time, you may find that genes that were bred out were more desirable than the genes that were retained.

VSH is a clear example where Harbo found that highly VSH bees removed too much brood which led them to being useless for producing honey.

Re: Something needs to change - looking for suggestions

Originally Posted by Michael Bush

These are two different statments. "traditional husbandry" is breeding from the best. "Scientific breeding" is breeding for very specific traits that can be tested for and taking specific measurements of traits.

It can be. The phrase isn't actually very precise at all. There is nothing 'unscientific' about careful results-led low-tech selective breeding. As I say, things don't have to cutting-edge to be scientific. You can do scientific experiments in your bathroom, and scientific cooking on a campfire. Science is an approach to discovery, not a set of high tech gear.

To be 'scientific' is to apply the scientific method. That's all. That can be drawn very tightly, or fairly loosely - with commensurate probabilisitic results (very tightly drawn = more likely to be correct results).

Originally Posted by Michael Bush

"traditional husbandry" has existed as long as people have been breeding anything. [MB]

Somewhere along that line that degenerated into carefully measuring specific traits and maintaining specific lines, which almost alwasy turns out to be a very bad idea that results in cows that can't calf, horses that can't process potassium, dogs that are deaf etc.

Sometimes. Broadly I agree with you, but just because lots of people use a good method to do silly things doesn't make the method bad. You can use a scientific approach to do good stuff too.

What you can't do is keep organic lifeforms healthy without having them constanly adapting to their constantly-evolving/new predators. Unless you medicate and call that 'health' But... you can only do that in closed populations...

So you have to do selective breeding (or suffer natural losses). Then you have a choice. Do that unscientifically (by intuition, guesswork, tossing a coin, reading goats' entrails...?) ... or scientifically - find 'best' through sound evaluation procedures and propagate from them mostly/cull the other end.

I suppose 'low-tech scientific approach' is a reasonable way to describe this, to distinguish it from the sort of 'high-tech precision scientific breeding' that you think of.

That's how I see it anyway.

Mike (UK)

Last edited by mike bispham; 01-14-2014 at 04:31 AM.

The race isn't always to the swift, nor the fight to the strong, but that's the way to bet